The Langoliers (miniseries)

The Langoliers
Title card from the first episode
Genre	Horror Mystery Science fiction Thriller
Based on	"The Langoliers" by Stephen King
Written by	Tom Holland (teleplay)
Directed by	Tom Holland
Starring	Patricia Wettig Dean Stockwell David Morse Mark Lindsay Chapman Frankie Faison Baxter Harris Kimber Riddle Christopher Collet Kate Maberly Bronson Pinchot
Music by	Vladimir Horunzhy
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	2
Production
Running time	180 minutes
Production company	Laurel Entertainment
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	May 14 (1995-05-14) – May 15, 1995 (1995-05-15)

The Langoliers is a horror miniseries consisting of two episodes of 1½ hours each. It was directed and written by Tom Holland and based on the novella by Stephen King from the four-part anthology book Four Past Midnight. The series was produced by Mitchell Galin and David R. Kappes, for Laurel Entertainment, Inc. The miniseries originally aired May 14–15, 1995 on the ABC network.

Plot

During a red-eye flight of a Lockheed L-1011 from Los Angeles International Airport to Boston Logan International Airport, the plane flies through a strange light, and most of the passengers and flight crew disappear, leaving behind only personal artifacts. Only those passengers who were asleep remain, discovering the predicament when they wake. Pilot Brian Engle, deadheading on the flight, takes the controls; unable to contact any other airport, he lands the plane at Bangor International Airport because of its long runway and lighter traffic level.

In addition to Brian, the other passengers include: Nick Hopewell, a mysterious Englishman; Laurel Stevenson, a schoolteacher on vacation; Don Gaffney, a tool and die worker on his way to meet his new granddaughter; Albert Kaussner, a violinist on his way to the Berklee College of Music; Bethany Sims, a girl whose estranged family is planning on sending her to a drug rehab; Bob Jenkins, a mystery-novel author; Dinah Bellman, a blind girl on her way to Boston to undergo optic surgery; Rudy Warwick, a perpetually sleepy businessman with a ravenous appetite; and Craig Toomy, an unstable business executive agitated over missing a meeting in Boston. Dinah, who has some telepathic ability, warns the others about Craig. When he was young, Craig suffered from psychological abuse from his mentally ill father, who instilled in him a fear of the "Langoliers", creatures that devour the lazy and irresponsible.

The airport seems deserted and without any power. The group discovers that everything is dull and lifeless – they cannot light matches, and food is tasteless. Brian fears the jet fuel will fail to move the plane, while Dinah reports hearing a strange sound in the distance. Bob postulates they passed through an aurora borealis and entered a time rift, sending them a few minutes into the past and out of sync. Craig becomes more unstable, and after finding a gun in an airport locker, he takes Bethany hostage and demands they take off again. Albert subdues Craig and Nick ties him up after realizing the gun's bullets are affected by the strange environment and thus harmless; a bullet bounces off Albert without hurting him.

Dinah warns the others that the noises in the distance are getting louder. Part of the group discovers a "pocket of the present" on the plane, and objects brought from the airport regain their normal behavior. The group determines they can refuel and take off, heading for the time rift, and hopefully return to normal time. As Brian prepares the plane for take off, the others go to bring Craig back, but find he has escaped his bonds. When found, he stabs Dinah and Don, killing the latter. Albert again subdues Craig, and the others leave him unconscious as they race back to the plane.

As they board, the group witnesses strange creatures consuming everything including the ground. Dinah (from conversation with Craig) calls these creatures Langoliers, which Bob deduces feed on time which has passed. As a panicked Craig runs out of the airport, a weak Dinah psychically convinces him that his meeting has moved from Boston to here. In a hallucinatory state, Craig gleefully admits to his boss that he cost his company $43 million, in hopes of escaping his father's abuse. The delay leaves Craig vulnerable and he is eaten by the Langoliers. The plane takes off just as the Langoliers consume the airport. As they fly through the void, Dinah dies while recalling to Laurel what she saw through her connection with Craig: "everything was beautiful, even the things that were dead."

As the plane approaches the time rift, Bob sees a snoozing Rudy and recalls they survived their first trip into the rift while asleep, and could disappear if they pass through it awake. Brian suggests reducing cabin pressure, which will knock them unconscious, but someone needs to remain awake to fly the plane and restore the pressure. Nick volunteers, having revealed that he was a government assassin on a mission, but tells Laurel to travel to London to explain this to his estranged father. Nick disappears as the plane enters the rift, and Brian wakes shortly after to land the plane in Los Angeles.

The passengers are concerned that they seem to be in a similar state as they were in Bangor, but Bob, noting the return of sound and smell, believes they may be a few minutes ahead of the Present, and that the time stream will catch up to them. As they watch, they see other people blur into view before they rejoin the normal flow of time.

Cast

• Patricia Wettig as Laurel Stevenson, a school teacher who uncharacteristically answered a personal ad to meet a man in Boston.
• Dean Stockwell as Bob Jenkins, a mystery writer with a strong ability for deduction. He manages to piece together the situation and provides many outrageous theories which come true for the most part, sometimes with his sidekick Albert's help.
• David Morse as Captain Brian Engle, an airline pilot on his way to Boston after hearing his ex-wife had died in a fire. He is qualified to fly the plane and is able to take off and land it safely.
• Mark Lindsay Chapman as Nick Hopewell, a British secret agent and hitman going to Boston for a final mission. He is tough, quick, yet compassionate for the other passengers with the exception of Toomy.
• Frankie Faison as Don Gaffney, a military aircraft tool-and-die worker on his way to Boston to meet his first granddaughter.
• Baxter Harris as Rudy Warwick, a businessman whose insatiable appetite and sleepiness helps Bob deduce situations on more than one occasion.
• Kimber Riddle as Bethany Simms, a rebellious teenager on her way to Worcester, Massachusetts, to stay with her aunt, though she is convinced she'll be spending the entire time in drug rehab.
• Christopher Collet as Albert "Ace" Kaussner, a violinist on his way to attend a music school in Boston. He becomes the "Watson" to Bob Jenkins.
• Kate Maberly as Dinah Catherine Bellman, a blind girl on her way to Boston to have a surgery to help restore her eyesight. She has strange psychic powers and is able to see and communicate with Toomy telepathically. She is strong-willed and seems to know a lot more of what's going on than anyone else.
• Bronson Pinchot as Craig Toomy, a broker working for an unnamed large company, who is psychologically unsound due to abuse by his domineering father that he faced as a child.
• John Griesemer as Roger Toomy, Craig's cruel, bad-tempered father. Although he is supposedly deceased during the events of the miniseries, he continues to torment Craig in hallucinations.
• Stephen King in a cameo as Tom Holby, Craig Toomy's boss, to whom Toomy reveals, in his final hallucination, that he deliberately lost $43,000,000 by investing it in stocks that he knew were worthless.

Production

The miniseries was filmed almost entirely in and around the Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine (author King's hometown) during the summer of 1994.

Critical reception

The Langoliers received mixed reviews upon its release. On Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of critics gave the miniseries a positive review, out of 22 reviews, with an average rating of 5.10/10. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave it a "B" rating, calling it an episode of The Twilight Zone stretched out to four hours, [but] nonetheless does have its moments. TV Guide gave it one out of five stars, calling it tedious and boring, criticizing its "dull" script, "cardboard characters", "ludicrous special effects", and its "dishwatery cast, [with the sole exception of] Pinchot, who rolls his eyes like an alien thespian from the Planet Ham". Variety found the first three hours of the series work well, but that it falls apart when the monster is revealed. The book Stephen King Films FAQ asserted that Bronson Pinchot "chews more scenery than all of the Langoliers put together".

See also

• The Odyssey of Flight 33 (The Twilight Zone (1959))
• A Matter of Minutes (The Twilight Zone (1985))

External links

• The Langoliers at IMDb
• Quotations related to The Langoliers (miniseries) at Wikiquote